Российская Федерация

In area, the Russian Federation is the largest country in the world. It occupies most of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Russia stretches from the Baltic Sea in the West to the Pacific Ocean in the East and from the Arctic Ocean in the North to the Black and Japanese Seas in the south.Russia is washed by 12 seas of 3 oceans. . It borders on Norway and Finland in the north-west, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and the Ukraine in the West, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the south-west, and Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China ans People’s Democratic Republic of Korea  in the South. The Russian  federation comprises 21 republics.                        

Russia has a rich and varied landscape: thick forests and barren deserts, high mountains and deep valleys. The longest mountain chains are the Urals, separating Europe from Asia.The highest mountain chain are the Caucasus and the Altai. . There are over 2 mln rivers in Russia. Europe’s biggest river is  the Volga , flowing into the Caspian Sea.The most important Siberian rivers are the Ob, the Yenisei and the Lena flowing into the artic ocean/The longest river of the Far East is the Amur, flowing into the Pacific Ocean. The world’s deepest is Lake Baikal

The climate in Russia varies from arctic in the north and continental in the center to subtropical in the south and monsoon in the east. Russia is extremely rich in natural and mineral resources. Russia’s vast mineral resources include oil ,natural gas, coal, iron, zinc, lead, nickel, aluminum, gold  and other non-ferrous metals.

The Russian Federation  is an  industrialized-agrarian country,the territory of which is divided into 12 economic regions.

Under the Constitution Russia is a Presidential Republic. President id the head of the state. The federal government consists of three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. Each of them is checked and balanced by the President. The legislative power is vested in the Federal Assembly. It consists of two chambers. The Upper Chamber is the Council of Federation. The Lower Chamber is the State Duma .The executive power is represented by the President and the Government,or the Cabinet of Ministers  headed by the Prime Minister.The Prime minister is in charge of the policy conducted by the government.The President is the commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces.The President is responsible for domestic and foreign policy, appoints heads of the federal services, agencies and committes.the President of RF is elected by the direct popular vote for six-year period. The judicial power is represented by the system of courts, including the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Arbitration Court and local regional courts.The national symbols of the Rssian Federation are the national emblem-two-headed eagle, three-coloured banner and the national anthem.The Law of the national symbols was initiated by the second Russian president V.V. Putin and approved by the federal Assembly in December, 2000.